User Comments - kencarroll
kencarroll
Posted on: Wrong Change
May 20, 2007 at 8:50 AMIngmar, We'll have you fluent before you're 75! Then the fun starts.
Posted on: Paying a Bill
May 18, 2007 at 2:17 PMal, Really glad you like the new format. The Sat Sowe is here - http://extra.chinesepod.com/
Posted on: Paying a Bill
May 18, 2007 at 4:08 AMHannahlm, Herb flavored underwear is definitely one of my favorites. Yummy.
Posted on: Cold Beer
May 16, 2007 at 6:44 AMLantian, The word is 'holophrastic'. (A word is 'holophrastic' when it constitutes a whole sentence.) It still amazes me how efficient Chinese can be.
Posted on: Late Getting Back
May 16, 2007 at 5:44 AMDid you chaps like my Otto Jespersen quote? He suggested that teachers should never tell a student anything he could figure out for himself.
Posted on: Where's the bus stop?
May 13, 2007 at 10:13 AMSaturday Show is here http://extra.chinesepod.com/
Posted on: Colors Song
May 4, 2007 at 7:20 AMThis song is like a lesson in Chinese culture. It has the structure and timbre of a poem (though I don't know which dynasty). It's also very sweet, gentle, 'harmonious', etc, - more Chinese predilections. (The notion of harmony - not just in the musical sense - is huge around here.) Joy did a great job on the singing - she added harmonies (musical harmonmies) towards the end to very good effect.
Posted on: What's Your Name?
May 3, 2007 at 2:03 AM@freemonkey, Learnign characters has two parts: recognition and production. I beleive you can go a long way towards learning to recognize characters here but we don't actually treat writing per se (stroke order, etc). There are lots of good books out there that do that. Let's ask the community for soem suggestions about those. Anyone?
Posted on: Ordering a Steak
May 2, 2007 at 1:10 PM@bazza, If you order steak they give you a knife and fork.
Posted on: Lili and Zhang Liang 13: A Dad Gives Advice to a Broken-Hearted Son
May 21, 2007 at 8:55 AMI definitely can't prove it but I have this feeling that one of my ancient ancestors was also some kind of Mongolian royalty. I'm thinking a Duke or an Earl, though a princess is not out of the question. There's no evidence for this whatsoever, but when I went to Mongolia in 1988 I seemed to fit right in to what seemed like the national sport at the time - stone throwing. I believe the term for this is 'atavism'. Does this claim stretch credulity??